recently I bought a set of Shure M447 cartridges & needles for my Stanton St-150’s. I looked on the internet and they were recommended a lot, so I thought it would be a good purchase. However, after I’ve hooked them up to my turntables, I noticed that they skip frequently, a lot more than my other needle, which is from Ortofon. I already let them break in for a while and I installed according to the manual that came with them. Am I doing something wrong, are these needlse not compatible with Stanton turntables? Please help me out, because I am really thinking about selling them and buying me some Ortofons.
I’ve set the tonearm height at 4.5, anti-skate at 0 and the weight at 3 grams. I thought that should do it, but it still skips quite regularly. In the manual it says to angle the cartridge in a straight line with the pivot point of the tonearm, but it wears the record out much faster so I decided not to do that. Do you guys maybe have some other recommendations on how the setup should be?
I bought a new pair not long ago and they skipped quite a bit at first. But they are doing great now. Maybe just play with them abit longer? Used on stanton st150s and technics 1210 mk2s
Forget the extra weight that comes with them. Don’t use it.
Fit the cart to the headshell so it’s straight (i.e. not angled) and with the correct overhang. If you don’t have an overhang gauge, fitting the cart flush with the end of the headshell is almost always fine (I’ve never known it not to be).
With the motor turned off, drop the needle down on a record. Adjust the tonearm height so that the tonearm is level (i.e. not leaning up or down), then lock it in place.
Move the tonearm weight so that it floats/balances. Turn the weight gauge on the tonearm to 0 without turning the weight itself - at this point, the tonearm should still be floating/balancing. Then turn the weight itself to add the required number of grammes for your particular cart.
For decks that don’t have a straight arm, set the anti-skate to either 0 or to the same value as the weight applied to the tonearm. I’ve always found that 0 works best. If your decks have a straight tonearm, then anti-skate isn’t required and if there’s an anti-skate knob, it’s only there because the manufacturer also offers a non-straight arm version of the turntable and they haven’t modified the design - the knob does nothing with a straight arm.
Break the cartridge in. The stylus suspension will need breaking in. You can either drop the needle on a record (with the turntable off) and leave it there over night - although I’m not convinced that does a lot - or you can just break it in by using it. It doesn’t take long. A couple of days usually.
Sorry to hijack, but I really do think this might be relevant.
I’m relatively new to vinyl, and when I cue the first beat of a song on one of my 1200s, then move the record back slightly until it’s just before the beat, it sometimes goes back 10 seconds or so (as if it’s “jumped” back a few grooves on the record"). It’s not exactly skipping in the traditional sense, but it isn’t behaving the way it’s supposed to.
I have everything set up correctly for my cartridge as far as I can tell, and everything else works great. Also, this doesn’t seem to happen with time code vinyl. Anyone familiar with this phenomenon?
There’s also a chance that the needle it self has been/is damaged. I have the same turntable with identical tonearm settings except i have tech headshells instead of the ones that came with the tables and the m44-7’s never skipped once they didnt even needed to be broken in. I’d suggest going over your settings again
I always set my ttable tonearms as FLAT as possible… = less record wear… what could possibly be happening is that you are putting too much weight on needed which is causing more record wear which causes the cart to skip if you do not clean it off right…
I’ve tried to change the settings a couple of times and the skipping has reduced a bit, but it’s still unreliable. I’ll look to buy some Technics headshells, maybe that’ll do the trick. I don’t think the needle is damaged though, because the sound is fine.
another thing i forgot to ask, is the whole in the middle of your vinyl too big for the turntable spindle? (its the one that’s sticking up which holds your vinyl in place) because mine was and it kept skipping so i put paper in the middle to keep it snug and tight which drastically reduced the skipping. idk if changing the headshell will help but im sure it will make a noticeable difference
here’s a link for the whole being to big thing that im talking about and DJ Q-Bert demonstrates what im trying to explain.
Yeah there is a tiny bit of movement, but I don’t think that the needle skips so much because of that. What I do notice however is that the cartridge is very ‘wiggely’, like it moves from side to side when I scratch.
They skip when I scratch, especially when I go a little faster, like a scribble or something like that, or when I do a tear a little faster than usual.
By the way, another problem occurs occasionally. Sometimes when I put the needle on the record, I get this buzzing noise through the speakers and there is only sound coming through 1 speaker (usually the left). I have to disconnect the headshell from the tonearm and screw it back 1 or 2 times and then it’s all good again. Does anyone know what this is? Is the tonearm broken?
buy some aluminum clean from ace hardware and put a flattened q-tip in a dremel and clean the contacts and you should be good. I don’t have a lot of issues with my 447 carts skipping… you can’t scratch with heavy hands…got to have a finess and use more of your wrist then arm or you will wear your ass out